British convenience retailer McColl's warned of an 11% fall in sales in April and May if Britain leaves the European union without a deal, as customers migrate to new products and supply chains are disrupted.
However, the company said it does not expect Brexit to have a material impact on the business if the country manages to strike a divorce deal with the bloc.
Sales Performance
The group posted a 8.1% increase in revenue to £1.24 billion, however, if acquisitions are excluded, total like-for-like sales were down 1.4%, impacted by supply chain distribution following the supply chain distribution.
“Despite this disruption, we continued to make progress against a number of our key strategic plans,” said chief executive Jonathan Miller.
“We completed the rollout of 1,300 stores to Morrisons supply in less than nine months, which represents a considerable achievement and provides us with a more secure supply chain and a higher quality chilled and fresh offer. We also continued to invest in our estate, with 59 convenience store refreshes completed in the year and 11 new stores acquired.”
Early trading in full-year 2019 has seen a sales ‘improvement’, the group said, with total like-for-like sales up 1.2% in the 11-week period ending 10 February.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Additional reporting by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
